Alex Jewett of Geelong, Australia wrote that he had initial difficulty with our children’s story illustrating the limits of science through the ‘boat sunk by a cow’ — until he found an apparent confirmation of the story in an aviation safety journal (Flight Safety Australia, Vol. 3(4), July–August, 1999).

Apparently Japanese authorities did not believe the crew of one of their trawlers that a cow, ‘falling out of a clear blue sky’, had sunk their vessel. The sailors were released from prison when the Russian Air Force admitted that the crew of one of its cargo planes had taken off with a cow they found wandering near a Siberian airfield. It began to rampage at 30,000 feet above the Sea of Japan, so to save the aircraft, they shoved the animal out of the cargo hold. As Alex wrote, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction’.